2024 Chicago Sky Player Report Card: DeShields, Evans + Harrison
Reflecting on the seasons of the Sky's most important bench players.
For the three players covered in today’s season in review, 2024 was not the best of seasons. From the off-court hatred they faced to the struggle for a consistent on-court role, none had the campaign they envisioned back in the spring, and all will likely be looking for new homes in 2025 as a result. Regardless, all of Dana Evans, Isabelle Harrison and Diamond DeShields were important players for the Sky last season—finishing 6th, 8th and 9th in minutes played. Let’s dive into the season in review for three of the Sky’s most important bench players and look ahead to their potential goals for next summer.
Diamond DeShields
1. Free-Flowing Attacking Play
The Sky’s TV analyst Shimmy Gray-Miller frequently pointed out that DeShields was at her best at the offensive end when she was attacking the basket with minimal thought, and that definitely shines through when reviewing her 2024 tape. Even after recovering from a career-threatening injury, DeShields is one of the league’s most gifted athletes and her combination of size, strength, speed and balance makes her a dangerous threat when slashing to the basket. She’s intelligent enough to see the floor and make a decision about where to attack, it’s just about committing to that without doubt or hesitation. When she did that this season, DeShields was a great source of offense for the Sky both with the ball in hand working off the dribble or without the ball back cutting to the rim to take advantage of lapses in the opposing defense’s concentration.
2. Point of Attack Defense
Thanks to the size, athletics tools and intelligence I mention above, DeShields is a fantastic option as a point of attack defender. Even when the ball handler is able to wrong foot her or establish some space, her length allows DeShields to stay in the play and offer strong contests, and she has fantastic foot speed that allows her to go forward and backward at varying speeds without letting the aforementioned space open up too quickly. In 2024, the Sky didn’t get enough out of these skills as DeShields simply wasn’t on the court regularly enough, but I see this being one of the assets that makes her most attractive to the Sky or any other W franchises in free agency this winter as there’s simply not many players at this size (6’1”) who move so fluidly at the defensive end. And again, the fact that she is able to do so after the frightening injuries she endured is a huge credit to DeShields’ character and determination.
2025 Goal: A More Refined Shot Profile
While there’s lots of reasons DeShields should be on a WNBA roster next season, any team that brings her in to camp and makes her a candidate for their opening day roster will want to see improved decision making at the offensive end. For all that she offers as a slasher, DeShields was not efficient from the mid-range and had an incredibly difficult time from three-point territory last season (17%). And yet, there were still plenty of moments late in the season where she’d take a spot-up three early in the shot clock before looking to drive or move the ball to a teammate for a better shot. As long as you’re shooting sub-20% from three, there are very few scenarios where that shot is the best one for your team, and that’s a lesson that will need to be learned next season to keep DeShields in a W rotation.
Dana Evans
1. Three-Point Efficiency
After shooting a solid 35.7% from three through her first two WNBA seasons, Evans dipped to a disappointing 29.4% on a career-high 3.7 attempts per game in 2023. Thus, a big talking point for the guard before the final year of her rookie deal was her efficiency from long-range. For a team that had so little shooting, Evans’ ability to make those shots was always going to be of great importance, and her 30.8% shooting from three between May 30th and her final game in the starting line-up on June 14th undoubtedly contributed to the decision to move her to the bench for Lindsay Allen two days later. And yet, Evans kept her head down and managed to finish at a scorching 46.7% from three in September and 37.6% for the season overall—even after struggling mightily to find her shot in the middle stages of the season. Because of the inconsistent role Evans fell victim to in 2024, I think we still haven’t seen the evolution as an offensive hub that many (myself included) anticipated in the preseason, but the return to form from long-range—even while struggling for a stable role—was a definite plus.
2. Playmaking
Many of the social media “experts” that comment on the Sky would probably be surprised to see this included as one of Evans’ standout aspects of 2024 as the organizational skills Allen offered were a big part of the reason that Teresa Weatherspoon and her staff made and stuck with a line-up change. And in those respects, Evans is not the point guard Allen is. She’s a ball dominant player who offers much of her value by scoring and then playmaking off of said scoring. In 2024, Evans simply wasn’t efficient enough as an overall offensive player (37.8% on 2PT), and defenses were already too collapsed for her slashing drives to threaten the defense much. Yet, there were still clear improvements with her playmaking that became more evident late in the season when she started to creep back towards some semblance of a role as injuries mounted. The assist numbers aren’t there (in large part because the Sky couldn’t make shots), but the decision making Evans showed in the final stretch of games showcased her bringing the growth she’s shown in Europe into the WNBA game. Like with her overall offensive explosion, I think we’re only on the precipice of what Evans can do, but there’s definite growth as an all-around point guard as compared to how her game looked just 18 months ago.
2025 Goal: Recapture Defensive Role
I haven’t mentioned defense at all in talking about Evans’ 2024, and that’s startling given how much she can offer at that end. Weirdly, the Sky didn’t consistently call on the all-out pressure that Evans has become so famous for this season despite the coaching staff’s predisposition for high energy and high intensity defensive coverage, and it’s difficult to explain why. Simply put, there are few better at pressuring the basketball for 94-feet than Evans. If a coaching staff is not making use of that skill with some degree of regularity, they’re not maximizing the value of the player. Wherever Evans plays next season (I can almost guarantee it won’t be in Chicago), the coaching staff or Evans (if this was somehow a decision she influenced personally—which I doubt) needs to ensure this is a skill that’s used to hassle and suffocate the opposition’s ball handlers.
Isabelle Harrison
1. Spacing
All throughout the season, it was evident that the Sky had struggles shooting the basketball, and the result was a lot of dysfunctional spacing. With Harrison on the floor, the offense had a lot of options that simply didn’t exist with other line-up combinations. Four and five out looks—which are increasingly popular in the W and the NBA—were just not convincing with the Sky’s other front court players. And though Harrison shot just 16.7% on threes, she has a confident stroke and is the type of shooter that—at the very least—will get a reaction from post defenders. That reaction—more often that not—gets the interior defense out of shape, and opens the lane up for others to score in. Without the virtue of many three-point shooters to provide that spacing naturally, Harrison offering even a threat of outside shooting opened up new dimensions for the Chicago offense.
2. Positional Versatility
There’s obvious value Harrison can provide as a complement to both Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese because of her ability to guard the four and the five. Because while there are plenty of bigs who can claim to cover both, the gap in profile of the players you’re tasked with guarding at those two positions has arguably never been larger than it is now. At the four, you might find yourself guarding a dynamic player like Breanna Stewart or Napheesa Collier (who play more like a traditional SF at times) while the five tasks you with tests that are much bigger and stronger like Teaira McCowan. Harrison—thanks to her decent height (6’3”) and above average combination of agility and strength—is truly capable of handling all of those match-ups—meaning she can partner either of the Sky’s young front court players with very few match-ups at either spot going beyond her defensive skillset. If she does return to the Sky next season, expect that versatility to be essential in helping her carve out a role—especially as Elizabeth Williams returns to take on the team’s lead front court reserve role.
2025 Goal: More Playing Time
After the injury she dealt with in 2023, Harrison simply needs more playing time to find her rhythm again. By starting this offseason with Czech champions USK Praha in the EuroLeague and finishing it with her usual spring stint in Athletes Unlimited, Harrison will get plenty of basketball this winter, but she’ll want to build off of that further with a bigger role in the W in 2025. For that reason (plus those I mentioned above), I wouldn’t expect Harrison to return to the Sky next year with Williams’ return making the battle for minutes an especially crowded one. But, based on the flashes we’ve seen throughout 2024 (remember Harrison’s 41 point game in AU last spring?), I expect someone in the W will want to offer her the role she’s looking for—especially since she’s only just turned 31 and likely has at least a few prime years remaining.